


here to stay

by interstellarbeams



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned John B. Routledge, Pre-Canon, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25508461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarbeams/pseuds/interstellarbeams
Summary: JJ has a small circle of trust, the Pogues until Kiara breaks her way in.
Relationships: JJ & Kiara & Pope & John B. Routledge, JJ Maybank/Kiara Carrera
Comments: 22
Kudos: 78
Collections: Jiara July Jubilee





	here to stay

**Author's Note:**

> It’s my first Jiara fic y’all! I’m so excited to share but also kinda nervous.
> 
> Thanks to Lara for encouraging me about writing for this week and Jordan for looking this over. 
> 
> for Jiara July, Day 1 — Pre Canon
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated! 💕

_It's like I can't leave your side but the next day comes_  
_And I think I was wrong, I don't know what's right_  
_Cause you push me back as you pull me in_  
_And I'm so afraid that I won't be seen_  
_I'm in between_  
_In Between_ — Michael Blume

————

It wasn’t as if he expected to be anyone’s first choice, hell even second choice was way more than he deserved but JJ Maybank knew where he stood with his crew. 

That was until the moment Kiara Carrera joined the Pogues, and his security at his place in the group dissipated. He was used to it being him, John B and Pope, that was it. 

Trusting people didn’t come easy to him — his life experiences had taken individuals he should have been able to trust and twisted their attentions into a cruel joke — but the boys had found the cracks that he had so desperately tried to hide and chipped at them, persistently until they were open wide, allowing JJ’s longing for love and attention to escape.

Kiara wasn’t particularly beautiful (at least not then) and she was shy, almost timid at first like she expected the three boys to judge her before they even knew her. They weren’t like the Kooks, _thank God_ , that only focused on a person’s looks or the fact that their brand of clothing wasn’t what was _in_ , the boys mostly wore cast offs after all. 

( _She was a part of the group now — once a Pogue, always a Pogue — and that was the end of that._ )

Once she relaxed into the chill environment that was the boys typical mode — mostly helped along by the weed JJ’s cousin supplied them with — a new side of her immediately came to light.

Kie, as they would come to call her, was an advocate for the environment, a no holds barred, recycle your paper and plastic, drive an electric car and volunteer to clean up the beaches on the weekend type person. It was frankly, awe-inspiring to JJ who had never seen someone be as passionate about anything as the curly-haired teen was about the planet.

Then she started bossing the boys around. 

Which JJ would typically roll his eyes at, ignoring her warnings about rip currents as he waded into the ocean, discarding her attempts to get them to eat healthy by tossing her carrot sticks to the fishes and plunking down with a bag of pork rinds instead. Kie became an expert at the eye roll and only later did he come to realize that her “nagging” was the way she showed her love. Words came hard for her, but actions, those were easy. 

Love was an almost foreign concept to JJ, whose parents had split up before he formed any memories of his mother and whose father’s example of love was a smack to the head or his ear anytime he did something to piss him off. The slaps eventually became punches and home wasn’t a place anymore, but a building to be avoided as he smoked joints hanging out in the small bathroom at Big John’s and wished for a life that didn’t suck.

Then Kiara left for her Kook year, brushing them off to spend all her time with the hair-flipping-Abercrombie-wearing Sarah Cameron. Choosing to go shopping on the mainland and order fancy drinks at coffee shops that JJ couldn’t even try to pronounce instead of catching waves with them, picking fun at Topper and his douchy friends as they tried to master anything other than an alley oop.

JJ had played her abandonment off, like it hadn’t effected him at all and if he had spent more time than normal getting drunk on the bourbon he stole from Big John’s office and lost himself in any Touron girl that threw herself at him at the Boneyard keggers, well that was his business, _wasn’t it?_

Life went on for a few months, then John B’s dad went missing and Pope’s merit scholarship interview started creeping closer and Kie popped back into their lives like she had never left. Like she knew that she was needed to mediate between the boys and the existential dread that was bearing down on them. 

She wasn’t quite the glue that held them together but a remedy that locked their individual pieces together and kept them from falling apart — the duct tape that you pulled out of the junk drawer whenever you needed a quick fix. 

JJ ignored her at first. His problems were his and his alone to deal with — she apparently didn’t care or she wouldn’t have skipped off to greener pastures — and no amount of coaxing from the beautiful young woman would get him to open up to her. She had left him behind and with that, his trust had disintegrated like a piece of paper dropped into a puddle. 

But she didn’t give up. She was tenacious like that. She brought him his favorite beer and would always bring him the last doughnut, covered in powdered sugar from The Wreck, because it was just _going to go in the trash_ if she didn’t. Alcohol and free food were certainly the way to his heart but he simply thanked her and turned his back, choosing instead to listen to Pope rant about dead bodies, than allow her to see how she was breaking him down. 

JJ didn’t even pause to think about what she had experienced while she was gone. Hardly recognizing the sad looks that crossed her face when she caught sight of the Cameron’s yacht and the way her eyes slowly tracked Sarah’s form every time the Kooks flooded the North beach like a flock of seagulls, for what it was. She had her own pain, her own troubles and issues. Her attitude became sharp, her tongue sharper but who was he to judge, when he typically flew off the handle at the smallest slight.

Trusting her again would take some time, or so he thought. 

Then his dad had decided it was a good idea to wrench his arm up between his shoulder blades while he was drunk on Jack Daniel’s, raging about how ungrateful his son was and how much better his life would be without his worthless carcass taking up space. 

JJ typically took his father’s beatings stoically, knowing that he would be tainted even more if he gave in and started crying like a _wuss_ but that night, he almost bit through his lip in agony, trying to hold his painful cries in. 

Needless to say, the next day his wrist was covered in bruises and he could barely use it to brush his teeth or light up a much needed cigarette without a sharp twinge running up his arm.

He hadn’t tried to hide it from the guys, who were typically unobservant but Kiara was another story altogether.

Her warm fingers had circled his wrist carefully, a frown creasing the skin between her eyebrows. He almost jerked away from her, the tenderness of her touch unnerving him but the gesture ignited an unfamiliar sensation behind his breastbone so he let her continue her inspection. 

“Oh my god, JJ! What happened?”

“Oh, nothing really. I was just doing a stupid stunt and fell out of a tree.”

She squinted up at him and he prayed that she wouldn’t notice the lie lurking in his eyes. Lying came easily to him, but who knew what kind of special powers Kie had, she was able to quickly put anyone at ease without even trying, including him. 

“Did you go to a doctor?” She asked, carefully releasing his arm and crossing hers across her chest. 

“Oh, uh no. I—“ JJ didn’t want to admit that he didn’t have the money to see a general practitioner and even if he did, it would require a trip to the mainland which he had no ferry fair for. 

“JJ doesn’t believe in doctors.” Pope piped up, earning a glare from JJ who willed him to be quiet but it didn’t work. “Nothing works better than vodka and antibiotic cream.”

“Ha.” Kie laughed, sardonically. “Antibiotic cream will _not_ help with this.”

Pope shrugged, dropping to lay back in his hammock where he had been taking a nap. 

“It’s all good. I’m sure it’ll be fine in a few days.” 

“No, JJ that looks horrible. You need to see a doctor.”

“I can’t afford one, okay?” JJ gritted out, turning away from her and crossing the backyard, looking for anything to distract him, but with the way his wrist was, tinkering with any of the half completed engines that rested on sawhorses around the property just wasn’t an option. _Damn it._

Kie’s footsteps crunched across last fall’s dead leaves as she followed him and he groaned inwardly before turning to face her.

“You can’t fix this, Kie.”

“I work a double shift tomorrow at The Wreck. I can give you my tips so you can see a doctor, how about that?” 

“No. You can’t do that Kie. I won’t take your money.”

“I want to help.” She blew out an exasperated breath, pressing determined fists to her hips.

“I get it. You can’t help it, with your do-gooder heart and all that shit, but I’m fine.” 

Kie scoffed and made to punch him in the shoulder but changed her mind, letting her fist drop to her side anticlimactically.

JJ couldn’t help the snicker that pressed it’s way out through his lips.

“Shut up.” She tried to glare at him but a smile quirked at the corner or her lips and then she was laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Pope yelled over at them but they weren’t able to explain why they were suddenly bent over from hysterical laughter.

Surprisingly it felt good, to let a little tension out with a rush of endorphins, or whatever those happy chemicals were called. JJ could never keep his eyes open in health class, the best part of his day and always his worst grade when school was in session. 

The next day, they were in town, picking up some snacks for the road — driving over to the other side of the island for a prime wave left them all ravenous. Typical of Kiara, she picked out nuts, dried fruit and a gallon of water for herself, while John B, Pope and JJ loaded down on the saltiest, cheesiest, sourest, most caffeinated treats to be found, piling them on the countertop at the register and trying on every set of shades on the sunglasses rack while they waited for their purchases to be rang up.

Kiara stood alongside JJ, suddenly jabbing him in the rib cage with an elbow and gesturing toward the back of the store with her head. 

JJ was confused. _What was she trying to tell him?_

“I don’t have to go to the little boy’s room, Kie. I’m good.” 

Kie rolled her eyes, lifting her arm up, she tapped at her own wrist, motioning with her head again.

 _Shit, good eye, Kie!_ JJ thought, as he casually walked down the aisle, touching random items as he went and reading a few labels while the cashier’s attention was distracted by Kie knocking into the sunglasses stand, throwing multiple pairs on the floor with a loud clatter. JJ snatched up a ACE bandage from the minuscule first aid section, stuffed it down his shorts and casually made his way back to the front.

“Oh my gosh, I’m such a klutz. I am so sorry.” Kie apologized dramatically to the cashier, one hand pressed to her chest in histrionics.

“Try being less clumsy next time, eh, Kie?” JJ winked, before he strolled out the door and let Kie follow along behind as they made their way to the Twinkie and the anxious surfers who awaited them. 

“Did you get it?” Kie asked as she dropped to the floor beside him in the back of the van.

“Hell yeah.” JJ offered his elbow for a bump, which she gladly obliged, unwilling to injure his arm any further.

“Here, give it to me.” Kie stuck out her hand and he wiggled the plastic wrapped package out his shorts and handed it to her.

“What are y’all doing back there?” Pope asked, craning his neck to see what they were doing but Kie sat up on her knees and blocked his view as she unwrapped the bandage.

“Nothing, man.” 

Pope glared at them, his interest in what Kie was doing had recently taken over his every thought, or at least that was what JJ assumed, cause he wouldn’t shut up about it.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” 

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. I take a first aid class on the weekends. Cause God knows when I’ll need to take care of y’all’s careless asses.” 

JJ snorted, while John B and Pope made offended noises in the front seat, earning an eye roll from Kie who then smiled at him. Her fingers were soft against his bare skin, drawing no pain despite the purpling bruises and his sprain. She carefully wrapped the fabric around his wrist, tucking the pin into it so as not to prick him, looking proudly down at her handiwork. 

Warmth filled JJ’s chest at the unfamiliar care with which she took to help him. Affection and friendship were now his through his relationship with Pope and John B, now Kiara had shown him attentiveness and sympathy that the boys were probably not quite as proficient at. He felt loved and in his young teenage life he hadn’t had nearly enough. It was nice if a little uncomfortable, to be the focus of only one person’s attention.

She may have left him behind but she came back and he hoped that she was here to stay. His life just wouldn’t be the same without her.


End file.
